Mileage commute limits

[MGordon]

IRS says if you have field associates, their first and last trips should be considered commute miles and not reimbursed.  If you have Field associates, do you cap the first and last legs of their day?  We currently have in our policy that if the first or last leg is greater than 50 miles, you can get reimbursed for any miles over the 50.  How does your company handle commute miles for field associates?

[patilr1982]

Interested to know the rules. I haven't been requested for such a setup despite having worked for clients in the US who have staff in the field on an almost daily basis. I guess this control is mostly implemented in an offline manner by educating staff and training managers. Audit rules can always be set up to route expense reports with mileage for manager review.

[MGordon]

Yes, we manage it outside of the system as not all of are associates are "Field".  We rely on our managers to review  as it is difficult for us to  validate if the commute miles have been deducted or even should be deducted.  Because the IRS doesn't cap the commute miles, I am very interested in what other companies have in the policies concerning these commute miles.

[AmberLee]

By field employee does that mean they work from home? If that's the case we deduct the distance from their home to the office from their daily total. Concur mileage expense type/google maps has a 'deduct commute' option that will do it automatically so if you're not using that feature you should. Just make sure they've updated their profile with their home address and it's super easy.

[MGordon]

@AmberLee  Field and Work at home are a little different.  For Field, there primarly job is done on the road out in the "field".  Some of our Field employees first stop of the day may be 50 or 100 miles away from their home (they don't regularly come into a regional office).   In our policy we state that their first stop of the day is not reimburseable unless it is over 50 miles.  I am looking to see if other companies who have "Field" employees have any caps on that first and last trip of the day.

[AmberLee]

The same rules would apply for the ones who drive direct to a site rather than drive to the office first. The deduct commute feature simply removes the miles from their home to their office (whatever their profile has as their main location) and then the rest is reimbursable.

[RB]

I am curious, what is your mileage reimbursment policy for above a standard 5 day work week? If employee already worked 5 days and is required to work saturday and/or sunday, would he/she be required to deduct their home to office commute?

Thank you!

[MSTEEN]

The Payroll or HR department would be the one to clarify this issue. 

Hourly and exempt employees are treated differently when it comes to Payroll and HR. 

I would like to see hourly employees get mileage reimbursed for coming to the office beyond the 5 days work week.  But, that is just an opinion.